03 Apr Malnutrition update…

You may recall my rather stark heading last month ‘While you read this… There is hunger in Malawi’, and so it is great to be able to give you an encouraging update .

We were able to get to work very rapidly and effectively because:

Your generous responses were so quick.

We have very direct communication with those in Malawi who were actually doing the work – no elaborate procedures or convoluted channels of communication. You sent the money to MM, and I sent it on to Malawi immediately.

They had a plan of action, and needed the resources urgently

Every penny you gave gets there, with no UK costs or salaries (not a bad model for a charity perhaps…).

So it is a pleasure to include here an intital, provisional, report – just something I have put together myself from emails. In Mtunthama itself they have been too busy with the outreach, and the monthly eye surgery, and the ‘normal’ commitments of a busy hospital, to write a detailed report.

It has been a really good and effective start. But the job is not yet done.

Outreach and essential feeding programmes continue at this very moment. It is a considerable extra cost. I haven’t written this in order to close the appeal. Indeed, I hesitated to write it at all in case I had that effect.

The work has started, but the need continues. Here is the report…

Nutrition programme from St Andrew’s Hospital Mtunthama

This is not yet a systematic report – the staff have been too busy to compile that yet, but I have pieced together some pictures and a bit of text to be able to tell you that great things have been happening. Within a few days of the original email from St Andrew’s hospital to me, which I sent around to ‘all supporters’, your collective generousity enabled me to give to go-ahead for outreach to start, children to be fed, food to be distributed… and lives to be saved.

Today was hectic day as we managed to distribute 40 25kg porridge flour (ufa wa Phala) to 78 malnourished children, 24 elderly malnourished, and 21 pregnant and lactating women from the surrounding villages who were pre-screened yesterday. During our screening campaign, we came across a seven year and nine-year-old girls lying on the road, having a body temperature of 40 degrees and we decided to bring them to the hospital on our backs. Upon arrival they were found 4+ Malaria which is severe. They were treated and one is discharged today cured. On more enquires we found out that they are both orphans.
Today we also admitted two more boys with severe malnutrition and Malaria who came for nutritional support.

Rosemary Honde St Andrew’s

My very very sincere thanks to all who made this rapid and effective response possible. The programme of feeding and outreach continues, and a fuller report will come in due course.

Your generous support has touched people in desperate need. The crisis is not yet over and the outreach programme needs to continue for at least another month. But where there was just hunger, there is now hope and action.